The Art of Argument (Student Edition) Samples

Middle and high school students will argue (and sometimes quarrel), but they won’t argue well without good training. Students who complete The Art of Argument will know how to reason with clarity, relevance, and purpose . . . and have fun along the way! They will study and master 28 logical fallacies, which will provide an essential lifetime framework for filtering good and bad reasoning as well as writing and speaking effectively. This mastery of informal logic is a foundational subject by which other subjects are evaluated, assessed, and learned.

The Art of Argument (Student Edition) features clear explanations and illustrations, along with dialogues, worksheets, and dialectic discussion questions, making this text easy to follow and engaging. The fallacies become relevant with practical applications through an analysis of current social, commercial, and political issues, as well as over 60 comical and clever phony advertisements. Fun extras are included, such as a humorous skit for students to perform and the famous short story “Love Is a Fallacy” by Max Shulman.

“My chief objection to a quarrel,” G.K. Chesterton wrote, “is that it ends a good argument.”

Published Reviews

Customer Testimonials

“Art of Argument not only teaches [students] how to think, it inspires them to engage thinking. In short, to think. A lot. It teaches a number of fallacies of thinking—in an interesting and effective way. I highly recommend them for any youth, parent and teacher who wants to boost their student’s thinking ability. In fact, it is a great read for any adult.” —Oliver DeMille, founder of Thomas Jefferson Education

“Working through The Art of Argument will hone your communication skills and allow you to identify fallacy in the messages being presented as ‘truth,’ as well as sharpen your communication skills. Even though this course could be used by a middle-school student for self-study, I’ve gotten a lot of benefit myself, going through the lessons.” —Jean Hall, review for Eclectic Homeschool Association

“The Art of Argument is a thorough study of the fallacies, written in an organized, engaging manner. It is a great mix of instruction and application. I would highly recommend it for teaching logic.” —Kathy Gelzer, The Old Schoolhouse magazine

“We have been using The Art of Argument this year and my 12-year-old daughter has absolutely loved the curriculum. So much so that she claims that logic is her favorite subject.” —Ildiko, homeschool mom

“We did unit 1 of Art of Argument last year. We are doing unit 2 this year. We love the ads in AoA, which we then apply to real life advertisements.” —Paula, homeschool mom

For placement recommendations and other questions, please see our FAQ page.

Joelle Hodge holds a BA in history/political science from Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania. She began her career as a staffer to U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa) before finding her professional home in the world of classical education in 1999. She has more than eighteen years of logic-teaching experience, many of which were spent at a classical school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. There she also developed much of their logic and rhetoric curricula. She is a coauthor of The Discovery of Deduction: An Introduction to Formal Logic.

Currently, Classical Academic Press hosts Joelle’s consultant offerings, where she engages with educators across the country, tailoring workshops for classical schools and co-ops that seek to train their teachers in the fundamentals of dialectic- and rhetoric-stage pedagogy. Through Scholé Academy, she continues to offer online courses in math, logic, and rhetoric, as well as a course in student-skills development (How To Be a Student). Joelle also serves as senior teacher for Scholé Academy, assisting other SA teachers in developing their most productive and inspiring classrooms. Concurrently, Joelle provides year-round, private, multidiscipline tutoring services to a classically educated family living abroad.

Aaron Larsen, DA

Dr. Aaron Larsen currently teaches history, Latin, logic, and rhetoric at Regents School of Charlottesville in Virginia. He previously taught at two classical schools in Pennsylvania. In 2001, Dr. Larsen joined a team led by Dr. Christopher Perrin and two other colleagues to help form Classical Academic Press. The motivation behind this endeavor was to produce exceptional Latin and logic curricula for the classical education movement. The first results of this collaboration included the publication of their logic text, The Art of Argument, and the three-volume Latin for Children series. Aaron is also a coauthor of The Discovery of Deduction: An Introduction to Formal Logic.

Aaron received his BA in history, with minors in philosophy and education, from Covenant College in Georgia. He completed his coursework for his DA in modern world history from St. John’s University in New York and went on to write his doctoral thesis on the Meiji Restoration, which, as he likes to say, is “the most important event in world history that nobody’s ever heard of.”

Dr. Christopher Perrin, MDiv, PhD

Dr. Christopher Perrin is an author, consultant, and speaker who specializes in classical education. He is committed to the renewal of the liberal arts tradition. He cofounded and serves full-time as the CEO/publisher at Classical Academic Press, a classical education curriculum, media, and consulting company. Christopher is also a consultant to charter, public, private, and Christian schools across the country. He serves on the board of the Society for Classical Learning and as the director of the Alcuin Fellowship of classical educators. He has published numerous articles and lectures that are widely used throughout the United States and the English-speaking world.

Christopher received his BA in history from the University of South Carolina and his MDiv and PhD in apologetics from Westminster Theological Seminary. He was also a special student in literature at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland. He has taught at Messiah College and Chesapeake Theological Seminary, and served as the founding headmaster of a classical school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for ten years. He is the author of An Introduction to Classical Education, The Greek Alphabet Code Cracker, and Greek for Children, and the coauthor of the Latin for Children series, all published by Classical Academic Press.